


Moments to Memories

by PrincessMisery86, Slytherkins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester Happy, F/M, Fluff, SPN fluff, Sam Winchester Fluff, Sam Winchester Happy, Supernatural Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27956486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessMisery86/pseuds/PrincessMisery86, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherkins/pseuds/Slytherkins
Summary: There’s never a right moment, especially in the world of hunting. Sam’s been waiting to find the perfect moment, but we don’t realise we’re in the moment until it’s a memory. Warnings: fluff, smidge of angst, more fluff.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s), Sam Winchester/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	Moments to Memories

  


##  **_Co-wrote with[@slytherkins](https://tmblr.co/muZe1qDQtN_lh3ws9OwxffA)_ **

**Summary** : There’s never a right moment, especially in the world of hunting. Sam’s been waiting to find the perfect moment, but we don’t realise we’re in the moment until it’s a memory.

**Warnings** : fluff, smidge of angst, more fluff. 

**W/C** : 2.7k

**Challenge** : [@negans-lucille-tblr](https://tmblr.co/mXMUrnghsXJaPZI8dvVWHsA) // [@spnsecretsantaficexchange](https://tmblr.co/m3nfTFWYC_GkHyUvdIP4JQg) \- [SPN Secret Santa Fic Exchange](https://negans-lucille-tblr.tumblr.com/post/633250339638902784/spn-secret-santa-fic-exchange) my fic is for [@alleiradayne](https://tmblr.co/mZmrmUKgdUQM4E0JGtshy6A) \- I hope you like it.

**Characters** : Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, OFC’s. 

**Pairing** : Sam x OFC (Jeanna). Dean x OFC (Tara) 

**Notes** : I signed up for this challenge and then life got pretty hectic, I was worried I’d have to drop out but didn’t want to let Bee or my Secret Santa down. I wrote a fic that was, at best, average, but @sly came to my rescue and made my average fic blossom into the wonder that it is.

##  **Moments To Memories**

Sam had been dodging Jeanna’s suspicions for weeks. Trust her to notice. She told him he seemed… _off_ , but every time she brought it up, Sam insisted he was fine. 

Sam was not fine. 

Sam was nervous, more nervous than he’d ever been in his life. He got nervous before every hunt, of course; it was smart. Trepidation meant he was prepared. He had been trained to expect the unexpected, but this was a different kind of nerves. He loved Jeanna, of that he was certain, but asking her to spend the rest of her life with him was a huge deal. 

He’d had the ring for weeks and had rehearsed the words; in the mirror, on his daily jogs, in the shower, and once to Dean…who’d tried to play it straight at first, but by the time Sam pulled the ring from behind his back, couldn’t contain himself. In falsetto, he’d called Sam a hunk and accepted his proposal before puckering his lips at him. Which would have been no help at all if he hadn’t sobered soon after and clapped Sam on the shoulder, telling him not to worry so much and that it would be great no matter what he said (which wasn’t much help, either).

Sam was as prepared as he could be. However, he could never find the right moment. He wanted it to be special, something neither of them would ever forget, not just words and a ring.

The four of them were heading back to the bunker from a butt end of nowhere town when Jeanna spotted it on the outskirts, glittering and busy.

“Is that…” she began.

“…a _fair_?” her sister finished.

Sam and Dean smiled at each other when the girls squealed with excitement as it came into view. Tara gasped and grasped the back of the seat in front of her, leaning forward to whisper Dean’s name. When they locked eyes in the rearview, all she said was, “Funnel cakes,” and suddenly, Baby was pulling into the makeshift parking lot.

As soon as they exited the car, Dean hurried away with his bouncing girlfriend in tow, in search of greasy delights. 

“Yes, you can have cotton candy, too, sweetheart.”

”And a _pretzel_?”

“I reckon we could split a pretzel,” Dean nodded agreeably. 

Jeanna’s sister stopped walking completely and stared at Dean, mouth open and twisted with the bitterness of betrayal.

“Wh- Oh, come on, baby, don’t look at me like that. Hey, you can have your very own pretzel, okay? With extra cheese. Hell, you can have two, if that’s what my girl wants.”

“You owe me a stuffed animal after that scare, Dean Winchester.”

“The biggest one they’ve got,” Dean agreed, nonetheless coaxing her toward the line to the food stalls. Clearly, the winning of stuffed animals would have to wait until after the consumption of carnival fare. 

Sam and Jeanna were still grinning and shaking their heads at their food-obsessed siblings when Sam stepped up to the booth to purchase their tickets.

“So, just a couple, right?” Sam teased, pulling out his wallet. “Like one ticket apiece?”

Jeanna looked positively scandalized. “I want to go on every ride, and you know it,” she told him, shoving him playfully with her shoulder. 

Sam chuckled. Then he bought twenty, handing them to her like a bouquet of flowers, which she pretended to sniff. 

The air was sweet and bright, weighted with the heavy warm scent of fried food and spun sugar but lifted in equal parts by gentle calliope music and the screams and laughter of fellow fairgoers. Their breath fogged in front of them, giving the light from the colored bulbs that ringed the game stalls a dream-like quality.

“Which one first?” Sam asked, slipping his arm around her shoulder as they walked deeper into the bustling crowd. 

Sam knew what her answer would be before she spoke. She’d barely taken her eyes from it since they arrived. “The Ferris wheel,” Jeanna told him enthusiastically. 

Sam smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Let’s do it.”

An enormous Christmas tree was set up beside the Ferris wheel, decorated in rich golds and deep reds, and the long line to board the ride gave them ample opportunity to admire it. It looked somewhat out of place in a dirty field surrounded by rusting machinery and mud-caked boots, but that only served to make it more beautiful. The ornaments were three times larger than regular ones, and most looked handcrafted. Sam relished every ‘ooo’ and ‘ah’ that Jeanna emitted while she pointed out the decorations as if he couldn’t see them too.

“Oh, look, a rocking horse,” Jeanna delighted, paying more attention to the tree than her footing as she stepped into the ride, making Sam have to guide her to the seat safely. “I used to have one of those!”

She was only momentarily distracted from the display by catching sight of Dean and Tara below, the latter of whom waved up at them, almost dropping the enormous stuffed unicorn she now carried. 

The twinkling lights reflecting off Jeanna’s contagious smile made Sam’s stomach do a happy flip. He pulled her closer, turning her attention away from the pair and back to him before pressing his lips to hers gently. 

“I love you,” he whispered. 

“I love you, too,” she said, kissing him again. She tugged her coat a little tighter around her chin and sighed, contentedly resting her head on his shoulder as the ride lifted them higher. The hubbub of the carnival below faded to a whisper and they were alone with the wind and stars. “So, you gonna tell me what’s been on your mind, Sam?”

This was the moment he’d been waiting for. He’d never be able to explain it, he just somehow _knew_. Everything was perfect: The tableau of the fair spread out beneath them, restless and glittering with a myriad of soft colors; the endless, clear sky above, serene and stable, cooling to a velvety royal blue over a fading pastel sunset. The air was just crisp enough to draw them snugly together, each radiating the exact amount of warmth necessary to make the swinging cart they sat in the most comfortable place he could imagine.

Sam realized she was still waiting patiently for him to answer her, but for all the times he’d rehearsed it, the speech caught in his throat. They weren’t yet at the top. Should he wait? But she was already expecting him to speak. He was fairly certain of her answer, but what if he was wrong? What if she said no, and they had to endure the rest of the ride in awkward silence? Sam removed his arm from her shoulder to wipe his sweating hand on his pants leg, and Jeanna frowned at him.

“Sam?” she asked, growing apprehensive, “What’s bothering you?” 

Sam cleared his throat, and with a gentle finger under her chin, he slowly raised her head to look at him. “You,” he admitted softly.

Wait… That didn’t come out right at _all_. 

Her brow creased, and Sam panicked. “Oh, God. N-no,” he rushed to correct himself, “I didn’t mean-”

Tears pooled in Jeanna’s eyes, and she pulled away from him as if struck. “Your timing really sucks, Sam Winchester,” she said, her tears spilling over, “breaking up with someone three days before Christmas. And you just said you loved me.”

“No, I do! I just meant that I-” 

“So what is it? You love me but don’t want to be with me, what kind of bullshit is that?” She huffed and twisted in her seat to put her back to him as much as she could in the confines of the boxcar. 

Things were spiralling fast. Sam stopped trying to explain himself with words and fumbled in the inside pocket of his jacket for the ring box instead. 

“And on the top of a Ferris wheel?” said Jeanna, her tone scathing. “You couldn’t have waited until we were at the bottom? Now we’ve got to ride this thing…” Her voice caught in her throat, clogged by emotion, unable to continue. 

“Jeanna,” Sam begged, reaching out for her, but she shrugged his hand off her shoulder. “I’m not breaking up with you,” he spoke quietly, “quite the opposite, actually.”

She turned her head but still kept her body turned away from him. Sam smiled apologetically, and his sincerity softened her glare. Then her eyes finally fell to the ring box he held up, and she gasped. 

Sam chuckled half-heartedly. “This wasn’t the way I hoped it would go,” he said, nervously running his free hand through his hair. “I had a big speech prepared. I even practiced it on Dean,” he confessed with a laugh, pulling a small smile from her, but she seemed too overwhelmed to really share his amusement. “But this is kind of perfect in a way,” Sam said more softly, thumbing away a stray tear that rolled down her cheek. “It’s how we started out, after all. You, misinterpreting my clumsy attempts at flirting,” he recalled with a wry smile, “assuming you’re not my type. I should’ve known back then, just like I should know now, you’ve never needed big speeches and grand gestures. I should just be straightforward and ask.”

Jeanna smiled sheepishly. “You still haven’t,” she choked out around a small sob, “asked me, that is.”

Sam returned her smile, and happiness filled him, leaving no room for nerves. He took her hand in his, bought it to his lips, and kissed her knuckles. He held her expectant gaze as he asked her:

“Jeanna, will you marry me?”

_Finally_ , he’d said the words. He felt buoyant with relief. 

Or was it relief? Sam felt as if he were floating, but it wasn’t necessarily with elation. He felt…disconnected somehow. Something was wrong. The whole scene felt… _off_.

Jeanna smiled at him, lips parted to answer his proposal, but the words never came. Everything was still. The small puffs of breath that billowed around them were frozen in midair as if someone had pressed pause. Sam, long accustomed to strange happenings, figured maybe he was having an out of body experience. If he could just remember how to breathe, the scene would start again.

Sam heard Jeanna call his name. The desperation in her voice made him flinch, but her mouth hadn’t moved. Sam could feel her hand gripping his shoulder, her nails digging painfully even through his thick jacket and double layers, and yet, somehow, her hand lay unmoving in his. 

Then, Jeanna was shaking him. The boxcar dissolved, but the lights of the fairground still flashed, and Sam had to squint to see her through them. Fear gripped her features as she desperately called out to him, “Sam. Sam, baby, please wake up. _Please_.”

Finally, the bright lights and the Ferris wheel faded completely, swept away like sand in a gale, and Sam was in freefall. When he jolted awake, the fair was gone. He wasn’t even outside, he was somewhere dark and musty. His hands searched for something solid to ground him and found Jeanna kneeling beside him. When his eyes adjusted to the poor light, he saw relief shining from her tear-stained face. 

“What happened?” Sam asked weakly, brow creased, still trying to find his bearings. 

“Djinn,” she explained, smoothing the hair from his face. “Now, a dead Djinn. We were waiting for you and Dean to pick us up from the coroner’s office. When you didn’t show, we tried tracking your phones, but no luck. Then I remembered seeing this place on the way into town.” Jeanna gestured around the abandoned saw mill. “Tara figured out what we were up against as soon as we saw the bodies, and this seemed like a prime candidate for a Djinn den to me, so we hopped a cab. Dean’s okay, too. He and Tara have gone to get the car. I saved his ass and he _still_ doesn’t trust me to drive Baby,” she said, rolling her eyes. 

Sam’s head was clearing enough to allow him to notice the state of her. “You’re hurt,” he worried. Jeanna’s left eye was beginning to swell shut, and her tongue absently prodded at a gash on her bottom lip.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, “nothing that won’t heal. But remind me to teach my sister how to swing a knife, will you? What’s the use of knowing all the lore in the world if you can’t act on it, huh? Can you walk or do you need a minute?”

“No, I’m good,” he said, slowly rising to his knees. 

Jeanna hovered for a moment before she walked to the motionless Djinn to retrieve her silver knife from its chest. “We’re checking into a luxury hotel tonight,” she informed him, “I need a bubble bath and…” 

The images from his Djinn dream flooded Sam’s mind, drowning out her words, and he felt a keen sense of loss. He knew it hadn’t been real, but a part of him was still sitting in that boxcar, waiting breathlessly for her to answer him. Sam desperately wanted to know what her answer would have been. 

That’s when it hit him. He’d been waiting for the right moment, but there wouldn’t ever be a right moment, not in their line of work. 

Djinn dreams were typically skewed, idyllic on the surface but not quite right. There was truth in them, though. There had been enough in his that Sam realized something he should have known all along. Jeanna _had_ never needed big speeches or grand gestures. She wasn’t some wilting daisy, some delicate thing. She was a woman of deeds. Her sister handled the research, but Jeanna was the one to act on it. She didn’t go for subtle. She appreciated the straightforward. Before he realised what he was doing, the ring box was in Sam’s hand as he knelt on the floor. 

The weeks of nerves and stress disappeared. He waited until Jeanna turned back to him, wiping the bloodied knife on a rag. She froze when she saw him, swallowing hard as she took in his pose and the ring that somehow seemed to gleam despite the darkness of the warehouse.

“Jeanna, will you marry me?”

Habit made her slip the knife back into the sheath attached to her leg, but once it was safely tucked away, he saw her hand slowly reach over and pinch her other arm. She winced and hissed, “Just making sure the Djinn hadn’t got me, too.” 

Sam chuckled, “I promise this is real. I’ve been waiting for the right moment, but we don’t realize we’re in the moment until it’s passed. What makes the moment memorable is what we do in it. The Djinn trapped me in a fantasy, but you’re the dream, Jeanna. You and me together - always - side by side. That’s the dream I’ve been living since we met, that I’m fortunate enough to call you mine. And I want it forever, with you as my wife.” 

“Yes, Sam,” she said, striding toward him to cup his upturned face in both her hands. She smiled down at him, happy tears clouding her vision. “Yes, Sam Winchester, I will marry you.”

Their lips met in a tender kiss, and the all-consuming happiness he’d felt at the top of the imaginary Ferris wheel returned, all the more overwhelming this time because it was real. She smiled against his lips, breaking away momentarily to let out a tearful, giddy laugh before reattaching herself to his mouth with even more ferocity, and Sam wondered why he’d worried about proposing in the first place. 

After too little time, clapping echoed around the space, startling them apart. It was soon followed by a breathless, ‘ _Did it happen??_ ’ 

They turned a sheepish look to their rapt and amused audience. Tara’s celebratory dance in response to Dean’s nod was quiet but enthusiastic. Dean left her to it and walked toward them, grinning from ear to ear. 

“That was a much better speech than the original, Sammy,” he said, holding out his hand. 

Sam took it, and Dean pulled him to his feet, yanking him into a hug that Sam could see over Dean’s shoulder being mirrored by their respective girlfriends. Well…Dean’s girlfriend and Sam’s _fiancée_. 

“Congratulations.”


End file.
